


In the Name of Science

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: M/M, Medical Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:02:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Angel's gang have been corrupted, Angel gives Spike to Wes, and Wes experiments on Spike with lots of medical kink and stuff.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sueworld2003](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sueworld2003).



> This is for sueworld2003 who requested a dark Angel season 5 with the above criteria.
> 
> I did pretty much that.

Spike was walking home, feeling pretty good about himself after easily saving a pair of teenagers from a gaggle of vamps. He’d gotten to pretend to be offended at the praise and adulation and pose for a quickly-snapped photo.  
  
He’d had a miserable few weeks trying to convince a runaway to return home and tracking some suspicious blokes who turned out to be just your average drug-dealers, only with a penchant for Wiccan jewelry. It had felt so good just to solve a problem through violence for once that he didn’t even want to swing by his usual bar. No, just a nice victory-lap of the neighborhood and a pint of pig in front of the telly.  
  
Naturally, that meant his phone rang. The display gave no number, which meant it was blocked from caller ID, which meant it was probably Angel, but possibly someone who actually needed help, so he sighed and answered.  
  
“This is Spike.”  
  
“Get your skinny ass over here now.”  
  
Spike’s stomach instantly soured. “Pleasure to hear your voice too, Peaches. I’m busy.”  
  
“You have twenty minutes, or you’re never getting into this building again.” Angel hung up.  
  
Spike stopped where he was, looking down at the phone display. Things weren’t good at Wolfram and Hart. They hadn’t been for a while, which was why he kept finding excuses not to go over there. And things were even worse between him and Angel. He never should have let the old man get a leg over. What started as a pity-fuck turned into a regular mess and got more than a little fucked up before Spike wisely started avoiding the place.  
  
But being locked out entirely….  
  
He still cared about them. Charlie. Fred. Even Angel. He could see the darkness descending on them. Even Lorne wasn’t quite what he was, and Spike felt out-of-place playing the Cassandra role.  
  
The minute number on his phone’s clock changed. Spike closed his eyes and sighed, knowing that he’d been planning on giving in all along.  
  
There was an outside chance that this was about a nasty that needed killing. Spike cherished that hope as he jogged across the street and changed direction for Wolfram and Hart.  
  
***  
  
Angel wasn’t in his office. Spike balked at the empty desk, knowing it meant Angel was waiting in his private suite, and that meant this very likely was not about some nasty that needed killing.  
  
“Put on your big girl panties and tell him ‘no’,” Spike muttered to himself as he stomped up to the elevator and jabbed the button.  
  
Angel was in his favorite chair, the one that faced toward the elevators, with a drink in one hand and the remote in the other, glowering like a despot on his throne. The room was thick with the scent of anger and arousal. Spike felt a Pavlovian mixture of excitement and fear that he wished to hell he could suppress.  
  
Angel raised the remote and clicked the television off. “You took long enough.”  
  
Spike licked dry lips. “Not your dog you can whistle to your feet.”  
  
Angel’s grin was nasty. “Yes, you’re a real hero. Now strip.”  
  
Spike caught himself reaching for the front opening of his coat and angrily lowered his hands in fists. He also hated how his cock perked up at the order. “Not this time, Liam.”  
  
Angel’s expression didn’t change. He took a sip of his drink.  
  
“This thing between you and me, mate, it’s unhealthy.” Spike started to pace, sighed, and turned to face Angel, a pained expression on his face. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, a soul later than the last time, but I’m ending this, Liam. Because I care about you. Can’t let you use me to punish yourself.”  
  
The corner of Angel’s mouth lifted. He took another drink and set his glass down. “I’m not using you to ‘punish myself’, idiot. I’m using you as a tight hole to fuck. Now get undressed. If I don’t get what I want in five seconds, I will throw you out and you will never see me again.”  
  
Spike raised his chin. “Maybe that’s for the best, then.”  
  
He could tell by the expression on Angel’s face that he’d expected his threat to work like it always did. Shock quickly lowered into anger. In a blink, Angel had Spike by the lapels. “Listen, you little shit, I work hard all day. Everything I do is work. I’m tired of playing this game with you.”  
  
“I’m not playing.” Spike knocked Angel’s forearms away only to have him grab on to the outsides of his arms this time and slam him into the wall.  
  
“You act like you’ve got a say in this. That’s cute.”  
  
Spike hooked his leg around Angel’s, but the trip didn’t come off and instead they struggled together frantically until he stomped hard on Angel’s instep and was able to slip free.   
  
Spike brushed a sweat-freed lock off his forehead. “I could say the same to you. Or have you forgotten I can beat you?”  
  
“You won’t beat me.” Angel took a lazy step closer. He leaned close and grabbed Spike’s crotch. “You want to lose.”  
  
The lust that traveled up from Angel’s big paw to Spike’s brain met his anger and fused with it. Spike saw a flash of red as he threw Angel off of him.  
  
Angel tumbled to his knees and most of Spike wanted to jump on him, get the fight started for real, fists and fangs until they were both bloody, but he knew where that would end up. Blood and sweat and torn clothing were all their favorite foreplay moves. He walked backward to the elevator, never taking his eyes from Angel. He reached behind him for the button.  
  
“You walk out of here, boy, you’ll regret it. I’ll make you beg me to take me back.”  
  
Spike shook his head. “What the hell’s happened to you, Angel?”   
  
Angel didn’t answer and the elevator doors enclosed him in safety.  
  
***  
  
Angel was hard, horny, irate, and had a headache forming. He wanted nothing more than to tear down the stairs after Spike and then get him under him. But he wasn’t going to let his dick rule him. He quickly dialed security. “Secure Spike. Don’t let him leave the building. … No, unconscious is good. Also, get me Wes.”  
  
***  
  
Spike felt like he’d been hit by a truck – which wasn’t a bad guess, given how some of his nights went, but he was soon reminded of recent events as he tried to get up and chains cut into his flesh and grated against the metal rails beside him. He blinked against the clinically-bright light, trying to figure out where he was, what the security goons had done. A shadow detached itself from the vague shapes at the edge of the room and gradually formed into a figure.  
  
“Good, you’re awake.”  
  
Spike squinted. “Wes? Why’s it so bloody bright in here?”  
  
Wesley’s head blocked some of the light as he leaned over, which was a relief. “The watchers council theorized that vampires would be sensitive to bright light, given their excellent night-vision.” He pointed a pen-light into Spike’s eyes which made him wince again. “I thought I would confirm that by focusing the examination lights on you.”  
  
“What the-?” Spike tried to sit up and the cuffs bit into his wrists. “Wes, I’m on your team, remember? What’s with the jewelry?” He jangled the chain at his left wrist.  
  
Wes examined Spike’s eyes a bit more before finally, thankfully, stepping away. Spike blinked away blue squiggle-trails as Wesley dimmed and adjusted the overhead lights. “I doubt you need me to tell you Angel is very displeased.”  
  
Wes looked calm and not the least aware of how crazy this was. He was sorting tools on a shiny metal tray-table. Spike couldn’t see much, as he could hardly lift his shoulders against the restraints holding him to what seemed to be an operating table. “I don’t need surgery. Vampire, remember?”  
  
“Starting recording. This is the first session.” Wesley turned around, wearing latex gloves and holding a bright silver pair of scissors.


	2. Chapter 2

Spike felt nervous at that sight and his fears were soon realized as Wes stepped to the foot of the table and started cutting up the leg of Spike’s jeans. “Oi! Those are new!” Spike flailed against his bonds.  
  
“Stop struggling or you’ll be cut,” Wes said, not looking up from his work.  
  
Spike froze, suddenly wondering if there was a logical reason for Wes to do this. He quickly twitched and flexed every muscle and joint. He was sore, particularly on his right side where he remembered taking a security goon’s boot right before they tazered him.  
  
But no, nothing felt broken, missing, or in any way needing invasive medical attention.  
  
Which, ironically, made him more worried. He stopped struggling and watched Wesley’s quiet concentration as he cut away Spike’s clothes. “Seems like I have been away too long,” Spike said. “What is this? Angel having his minions punish me because I dumped him?”  
  
The scissors snipped neatly through Spike’s belt and Wesley raised his eyes to Spike’s. His expression was steel and repressed anger. “Yes, you haven’t been around. Not even on the rare occasions when you were needed.” Spike tried to shrink away as the scissors turned to cut across the crotch of his jeans. The hard edge metal pressed into his balls, moving rhythmically with the snip-snip-snip, front edge riding up and down into his softest flesh like the prow of a ship cutting over waves. Spike sucked in his breath and held still and as close to the table until Wes turned the scissors and started down his other leg.  
  
“So I missed some fights! I’m bloody sorry. No reason to take it out on a bloke’s clothes!”  
  
A ghost of a smile graced Wesley’s lips as he pulled Spike’s slashed jeans from his body, leaving him exposed from the hem of his t-shirt to his still-intact boots.  
  
Somehow, the boots made it more embarrassing. Spike renewed his efforts against the chains. They didn’t look thick, but Wes had obviously enchanted them.  
  
Wesley dropped the denim on the floor. “Do stop fussing. You’ve been remanded to my custody for study.”  
  
“What are you studying?” Spike asked, trying for casual but it came out desperate.  
  
“The council has always had a small stock of captured vampires,” Wesley said, picking something up from his tray. He turned back to Spike and put one hand on his shin. “But we never had one so tractable as you to study.” He laid an adhesive electrode on Spike’s leg and smoothed it.  
  
Spike watched him place another electrode on his ankle and then switch to the other leg. “If you wanted help with your mad science, you only had to ask. Without chains. The chains aren’t making me feel real secure in our relationship, Wes.”  
  
Wes circled behind Spike’s head and Spike strained to keep him in view. Wes pushed his forehead down gently with one slightly-calloused hand and secured electrodes to his temples. “The restraints are necessary. I want to measure how intense an electric shock you can withstand.”  
  
Spike jerked his restraints. “Ask the fucking Initiative! Have you lost your marbles? Where’s Fred? I want to talk to Fred!”  
  
Wes laid another electrode on Spike’s arm and then drew back, looking at him like a parent regarding a poorly-behaved toddler. “It was Winifred who convinced me I needed to get back into the scientific side of research. Really, how you do go on. The shocks will be monitored for your safety. You should be grateful to be of use for a change.”  
  
“Of use!” Spike seethed. “What do you call it when I’m saving people’s lives? Dallying?”  
  
Wesley’s eyes were on his hands, removing his gloves. “The only use you’ve been of late has been in relieving Angel’s over-stocked sperm supply.”  
  
Spike could only gape.  
  
“Frankly, I’m glad he’s finally tired of you.” With a snap he removed the second glove and dropped it on the tray. Looking back at Spike, he said, “It wasn’t a healthy relationship.”  
  
Spike was still trying to figure out where Wes’s brain had gone when he turned away again and said, “Feel free to shout if you find it necessary.”  
  
Spike’s teeth slammed shut as electricity ripped through him, making his limbs jerk in their restraints and his back arch high off the table. And for a while after that, everything was pain.  
  
***  
  
A bright light penetrated the thin skin of his eyelids and Spike moaned, trying to turn way from it. “Shh,” said a gentle voice and he looked right into the painful light, squinting to see the face behind it. “Fred?”  
  
“Yes, it’s me. What do you remember?”  
  
“Wes… he… you have to get me out of here, Fred. Wes has flipped his trolley completely, running shocks through me like he was testing a sodding circuit breaker.”  
  
There was a soft click and the light went away, leaving a white-grey flashing afterimage, and Fred’s face, washed out in comparison, behind a held up pen-light. “Dilation is normal. No memory loss.” She smiled and patted his cheek. “You’re okay.”  
  
“Fred?” He pressed toward her, eyes tracking her as she walked down the table to type something into a computer on Wesley’s operating table. “I can’t believe this. Fred, not you, too.”  
  
She gave him a pitying glance. “Don’t be like that. Wesley isn’t going to permanently damage you, and it’s all for science!”  
  
Spike stared up at the acoustical tiles and the darkened lamps. He hadn’t even considered believing Wes about Fred being complicit in all this. “I don’t know who will even miss me,” he said aloud, not meaning to.  
  
“Oh you,” Fred said. She gathered up her laptop and stopped to pat him on the cheek again. “Everyone knows where you are. Don’t worry.”  
  
“Don’t do this. Let me out of here.”  
  
“It’s an eight-part study. But when it’s over, I’m sure there’ll be other stuff for you to do. For an immortal guy, it’ll be over in a flash.” She smiled and left.  
  
If Spike’s hope of escape had been a physical thing she had torn from him and dropped in her pocket, it wouldn’t have more thoroughly left him.


	3. Chapter 3

Spike stopped trying to talk to them – to Wesley, mostly, but sometimes Fred and often people he hadn’t met before – laboratory aides who came to measure parts of him and scrape parts of him and change out the IV that leaked blood into him. That was a particular torture. He could smell the blood – fresh whole and human – but he couldn’t taste it, and no matter that it kept him alive, it never convinced his stomach it wasn’t empty.

They replaced the handcuffs with more substantial built-in metal cuffs that were smooth and tight against his skin and even more thoroughly warded. What was worse was when they added a band across his forehead, holding his head in place so all he could do is stare up at the expressionless glassy face of the examining light. They did that when they cut into his fangs. He was sure this was the worst it would get.

And then came the horrible period – months? years? – when no one came at all. The bag deflated and then just sat there, growing sour and then putrid and finally not even smelling like anything anymore while he struggled ever more feebly against his restraints. He got the band across his forehead loose, at least, and entertained thoughts of biting his own shoulder. He could kiss it, and did, absently, playing over it with his dry mouth. It was something to do. He kept trying the wrist-cuffs to see if he’d lost enough weight that they’d slide free, but the fit had been tight.

When Wesley re-appeared, Spike thought it was a hallucination. He’d been having a lot of those, lately, talking with Dru, mostly, though sometimes the overhead lights frowned or winked at him. The big one reminded him of his father, more and more.

Wes blinked at him in befuddled surprise and turned around and left again.

Spike tried to call after him – his throat was so dry all he could make was a sort of rattling sound as he breathed in and a long keen as he breathed out. No, don’t go! No please! He would have begged. He thrashed the last of his strength until he fell unconscious.

Spike woke to the scent of fresh blood. His fangs dropped and he lunged at it with single-minded intensity. Something stopped him. He tried again. The blood swayed in his vision, red and bright and glowing and rectangular.

A rubber-coated hand gripped his arm and he almost wondered about that enough to stop trying to get at the blood. Almost. There was a pulse in the hand, under the glove, but he couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful swollen ruby overhead. Then everything went dark.

***

It was the IV being changed that woke him again. He recalled a few similar awakenings, though this time he wasn’t fevered with hunger. He watched the needle go in dispassionately and then looked up at Wes.

“You look like hell,” Spike said. His voice was weak.

A corner of Wesley’s mouth lifted. He taped the needle in place and opened the valve on the IV bag. “You, however, have recovered nicely.”

Wesley had a bit of beard, and his hair was a bit long and unkempt, like the yard of an abandoned house. He smelled like he’d been sleeping in the same shirt and slacks for at least a week. And there was something bright and frightening in his eyes.

Spike licked his lips, relieved and grateful to feel moisture on his tongue. He’d been so dry. “What did I miss?”

“I hadn’t expected muscle tone to return without exercise,” Wesley said, poking Spike’s thigh. “Extraordinary.” He stroked down Spike’s leg with a lascivious stare. “It’s highly unfair your tissues fail to behave this way once severed from the whole. Never mind the medical applications, the vanity uses alone would set me for life.”

“Wes!” Spike’s voice cracked a bit and he felt something like a tear at the back of his throat, but he had Wesley’s eyes full on his face now. Those hungry, frightening eyes. “You left me.”

Spike hadn’t meant for it to come out sounding helpless and pleading.

Wesley’s hand continued to stroke Spike’s thigh. After a moment he looked down at it, as though just remembering what he was doing. “Unavoidable. There were budgetary problems.”

“You can’t do that again, Wes. You can’t. Just let me up, yeah? Undo these sodding magical cuffs. I won’t go anywhere. Where will I go? Just let me get up and walk around a bit.”

“No… no that would compromise the data. Unfortunate, that this happened, unfortunate, but we have this golden opportunity to catalog the recovery.”

Spike thrashed his head and pulled with his arms and kicked with his legs and tried as hard as he ever had to wrench himself from the bindings. The fresh smell of his own blood filled the air and the metal groaned and protested and the table itself shuddered.

Wesley’s hand stayed where it was, atop Spike’s right thigh.

Spike gave up, exhausted. He lay still while Wesley resumed his stroking – gentling the lab rat. Spike looked up at the ceiling that was so familiar now it was like not looking at anything at all. “Tell Angel I’ll beg him to take me back. Tell him that, Wes. Please tell him.”

Wesley left soon after that and Spike spent the next few hours alternately praying Wes would tell Angel and praying he wouldn’t.

The next person to come in was a young lab assistant, who replaced the blood bag and pretended she didn’t hear him when he begged her to let him free. The next lab assistant also wiped him down with rubbing alcohol and drew a square on his hip with a black sharpie. Spike had a good long time to wonder what that meant before Wes came back.

Wesley looked better this time, cleanly shaven and his clothes were about as fresh as expected around five in the afternoon. He smelled slightly of whiskey, however, and the bright, strange expression was still there.

“Just see him try to cancel my ‘pet project’ funds now,” Wes said enigmatically, and peered over Spike’s body like reading a report. He stopped just above the marked hip and prodded the skin, feeling around the edge of Spike’s pelvis.

“I may be over 80, but I don’t think I need a hip replacement, doc,” Spike tried for humor.

“Hm? Oh, this. No. We put a capsule of holy water inside the bone last March. I’d have thought you’d remember. It’s time to take it out. Useless experiment, really. In a living body, the container would have dissolved, but in your lifeless tissue it just sat there.”

“Looks like even blessings run out.”

“Looks like.” Wesley finished feeling up Spike’s hip and turned to fuss over his surgical tools.

Spike wracked his brain, staring at Wesley’s back, trying to come up with something he hadn’t said to plead, to beg, to reason. He licked his dry lips. “How about a real experiment, Wes?”

Wesley turned around, a half-avid, half-anxious expression in his mad eyes. “Something Fred would approve of?”

Shit. Spike didn’t have any experiments in mind. He gave as much of a shrug as he could, given the restraints. “Seems like you’ve done just about as much as you can do without my participation, yeah?”

“You’ve been very accommodating,” Wesley said. His hand trembled on Spike’s thigh. “I haven’t had the time to devote to you with all this blessed office politics to deal with. I apologize, Spike. I promise, I’ll be here more often once the fiscal year ends.”

Wesley adjusted the over-head lights and picked up a scalpel. As he leaned down to make the first incision, Spike blurted out, “If I can’t move, you can’t bloody tell if my mobility’s been affected, can you?”

Wes stared at him. Spike felt like panic had just proven his smartest mode. He looked back with as little expression as he could.

Wes turned back to his hip and cut.

Spike hissed at the pain. He could feel the trickle of blood, but couldn’t see what Wes was doing. 

“That’s a very good thought, Spike. Of course, you’ll have to recover a bit from the surgery before we can put you through your paces.”

Next came something like a speculum that held the skin apart, cold and metal but he hardly felt that next to the scraping of his flesh from his bone. He clamped his teeth together and breathed hard through his nose. He was getting good at holding still. Though if he’d had a heart, it would have raced as Wesley picked up the electric bone-saw.

The high-pitched whine and vibration and the ragged, itching pain. Over top he barely heard Wesley’s absurdly calm crooning. “Very good. Gooood. Steady. Blast.”

The saw jerked and stopped.

The holy water, apparently, had not gotten less holy after all and burned like purity itself as its reservoir was cut into. It burned through bone and flesh and pooled on the metal below Spike’s body. He screamed and arched away from it as best he could while Wesley muttered curses and tried to jam a rag under him to clean it.

He never thought to unlock Spike so he could just get out of the way.

***

When Spike next awoke, he was on his stomach. The novelty was dizzying, even if it was annoying to have one’s face pressed into cold metal and unable to move. A band over his head locked him in place so that he could just look over his left shoulder. He could feel a little drool between his lips on the cold, hard surface.

His back felt raw and new. He twitched and wriggled, feeling out the new locations of the cuffs.

“Ah, you’re awake.” A rubber-coated hand rested on his calf. “The healing is coming along nicely. Wesley stroked up over the calf to the thigh and then cupped Spike’s right butt-cheek. “Almost as good as new. Marvelous.”

Spike tried to cringe away from the too-familiar touch, but of course there was nowhere to go. Wesley poked along the still-tender hip-bone, making small pleased noises before returning to a very un-clinical examination of Spike’s backside. Spike had been around the block a few too many times to mistake that particular sort of squeeze and patting.

Spike gritted his teeth a moment, but he had to admit he was eager to exploit any weakness he could get. “Like what you see?” he asked, as neutrally as possible.

When Wes didn’t answer, he gave his ass a little shake.

“Lovely,” Wes said, obviously talking to himself. Then he gave one last little pat and stepped away. “Another day, I think – maybe just eight hours – and we can test your mobility.”

Spike slumped with relief.

***

The next time he awoke, fuzzy as always from the anesthetic they only cared to give him when they wanted him unconscious, he could tell he’d been fucked.

He was on his back again, and he could tell that in the intervening time, Wes had fucked him. First off, there was the very real feeling of violation, of loosened and separated tissues, that only came from a cock shoved up one’s ass. Then there was the smell – oh, he’d been careful, no doubt, but over the antiseptic and lube and latex he could still smell traces of sweat and semen. Wesley’s sweat and semen. 

The cowardly bastard. Spike indulged in a bit of thrashing against his bonds. He could cut into him without being bothered enough to use local anesthetic, couldn’t he?

The door opened. “Oh, you’re awake.”

Wes sounded disappointed. Spike lifted his head and shoulders as far as he could to look right at the man. He wanted very much to lay into him, to ask him if he’d been hoping for another ‘quickie’. But instead he pressed his chin to his chest and said, “Come on, Wes, let me up. You said we’d be getting mobile today.”

Wesley approached, running a hand along the inside of Spike’s leg. “You are looking very well healed.”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Spike said, his voice flat.

Wesley’s hand traveled up Spike’s torso. “I’ve no doubt you would tear my head from my body and then make quick your escape.” He stopped with his hand on Spike’s chest. “I’m not stupid.” He pressed down.

Spike fell back more from defeat than Wesley’s strength. His head hit the hard metal table. “What the fuck, Wes? Don’t you know at this point I’d agree to anything to get off this fucking table?”

“Of course. And by now you must know that I find it pleasant to be able to do anything I like to you.” Wesley’s hand slipped down Spike’s torso and grabbed hold of his flaccid cock.

Spike jerked up in shock –and a not-insubstantial bit of fear – but Wesley only held firmly. “I want you to remember that. Think about it a moment.” Wesley let go. Spike couldn’t contain his sigh of relief. 

Wes smiled. “However, I do want to test your mobility.” He reached under the table and something clicked.

The cuffs holding his ankles released.

Wesley looked amused at Spike’s expression. He fished a key out of his pocket.

Spike forced himself to hold still. So close. Don’t fuck it up. He panted, hard and fast, while Wesley unlocked the handcuffs with agonizing slowness.

As soon as the cuff on his left wrist fell free, he grabbed for Wesley’s throat.

And froze, fingertips inches from flesh.

Wesley tutted. “You can’t think I didn’t put a magical ward up? I did say I knew you’d want to kill me.”

Calmly, he walked around to the other side and unlocked the other cuff. “You’ll remain frozen until I say you can move.” Wesley removed the cuffs from the bed and set them aside. “You can move.”

Spike nearly fell, as he’d been straining over empty space, but he quickly got to his feet and just ran.

His legs wobbled under him, feeling like over-cooked spaghetti, but he didn’t care. All he cared for was the door, and Wes did nothing to stop him bolting for it.

He was out. The corridor seemed so rich and exotic after so long in the sterile operating room. He could hardly remember a color so beautiful as beige.

He turned a corner and ran into someone – a broad chest of suit-wool. He hardly acknowledged it, scrambling around to keep on his way.

Incredibly strong hands grabbed him. “Hey, Wes? This yours?”

Spike struggled and strained, staring up at Hamilton’s smug mug and no doubt looking comically astonished at how strong the bloke was.

“Spike, be still,” Wesley said, walking up the corridor to meet them.

Spike stilled. “Bugger me,” He whispered.

“I bet that’s the idea,” Hamilton said with a conspiratorial chuckle.

“Of course, the spell is more than to just protect my person, Spike,” Wesley said, as though sadly disappointed he was too thick to realize that. “Would you be so kind as to bring him back to the lab, Hamilton?”

“Pleasure,” Hamilton said, hefting Spike up over one shoulder.

Spike felt paralyzed. He could feel, but not move. His limbs were simply still.

He knocked against Hamilton. He couldn’t even shake his head. “What did you do to them? You – Wolfram and Hart – how’d you make them all so barmy?”

Hamilton laughed. “Oh, I wish we could take all the credit. We just gave them what they wanted, Spike.” His large hand patted Spike’s bottom. “Just what they wanted.”

“Good. Set him down here. Spike, be a good boy and stand at the end of the table, legs apart. There’s a good lad.”

Spike was helpless to stop himself. He just did as told.

At least he was moving. In movement, hope. He tried to focus on that as he bent over the table to grasp where Wesley indicated.

“Having some fun, Wes?” Hamilton asked. “I might have to tell the boss. It’s not after five.”

“Hardly,” Wesley said, his hand traveling down Spike’s spine.

“This is for science.”


End file.
